Year 5, Day 308: Proverbs 17

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

We get a lot of talk about the “fools” in Proverbs.  This chapter is especially heavy in the talk about fools.  Ultimately, I think the designation of “fool” is a character issue.  Let’s face it.  We can all be foolish at times in our lives.  We can all even have foolish thoughts.  But there are two old adages that I’d like to share.  The first is from Abraham Lincoln and is quite popular.  “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”  The other is from William Shakespeare and is lesser known but very true.  “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

I think what both of these quotes point us towards is that while we all can be foolish from time to time, one of the main differences between a fool and a wise person is in action.  A foolish person simply puts everything into action without consideration of the effects.  The wise person contemplates their actions and words before putting them forth and only lets the truly wise ones out through their internal filter.  That’s why I think this is an issue of character.  Those with character have what it takes to filter their foolishness out of their public life.

Look at what this chapter of Proverbs says on this topic.  It is better to meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs than to meet a fool in his folly.  He who sires a fool gets sorrow and the father of a fool gets no joy.  The discerning sets his face towards wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.  Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.  Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

The truth is that folly is destructive.  That’s why it is a character issue.  When I am foolish, I destroy things around me. I destroy relationship.  I destroy myself.  I destroy the community around me.  None of those things are good things.  But if I have the character to keep my mouth shut in my moments of foolishness, my life and the world around me are spared.

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